Novell confirms that patent deal gave it access to Microsoft IP

May 10, 2007 1 Comment

Matthew Aslett has some more information from Novell on the patent agreement with Microsoft. From the article:

Last week I noted that a new explanation had emerged as to why Novell entered into its patent agreement with Microsoft: because Novell engineers “required sanctioned access to Microsoft’s code in order to develop open source interoperability without violating MSFT’s IP.”

I asked Novell to confirm whether this was correct and received an interesting response from Justin Steinman, director of marketing for Linux and open platforms at Novell, in which he confirmed the explanation and stated that it was not new, but had been overlooked the press and community.

The statement from Steinman was as follows:

“Since we announced the Novell-Microsoft agreement in November, we’ve always said that the intellectual property agreement provided a foundation for the interoperability between Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise. This foundation falls into two primary categories: 1) the “covenant not to sue,” which provides customers with peace of mind when they deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise; and 2) the IP access necessary for the technical collaboration to deliver interoperability between Windows and Linux. For better or worse, the community and press at-large have focused on #1, although Novell has talked about both categories since we signed the agreement.

“As you know, engineers at Novell and Microsoft are hard at work on our technical collaboration, and we demonstrated the first results at BrainShare in March. But in order to deliver the interoperability between Novell eDirectory and Microsoft Active Directory, as well as the bidirectional virtualization between Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise, Novell required sanctioned access to Microsoft’s code in order to develop open source interoperability without violating Microsoft’s intellectual property.

OK, that sounds a little more reasonable than some of the previously given explanations. The perplexing part here is why this is all slowly coming out in bits. Given the initial community reaction, you’d think Novell would have been crystal clear of the reasons and benefits from day one. Their actions caused people (for the most part reasonably in my opinion, given the circumstances) to assume the worst. At this point a huge amount of damage has been done to Novell, not only from an image/trust point of view but also from a staffing/recruiting point of view. Both of these are absolutely critical in the commercial Open Source world. It will be interesting to see how they attempt to recover moving forward.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

State Open-Source Bills Get Microsoft's Attention

May 3, 2007 Leave a comment

(via Stephe) The WSJ has an article up (also at MarketWatch) about Microsoft’s battle with State governments over ODF adoption. Stephe digs into the Microsoft site to see what their opinion was in the past. From the WSJ article:

The impetus for the Texas bill was similar to that in other states — a desire to ensure access to archived and current documents regardless of which company’s application is used to open them, and lower costs. “If the state could have these companies compete against each other, it would save taxpayers millions of dollars,” Mr. Veasey said.

Dr. Homan said he first became interested in the open-document-format issue when Florida’s Department of Health requested renewal of a three-year software agreement with Microsoft at a cost of $12.4 million. “I thought, man, that’s a lot of money, and that comes up every three years.”

Dr. Homan said Florida and other states could save money with genuinely open formats, because they are designed to work with other, conceivably lower-cost document applications than what Microsoft offers, such as the open-source technology OpenOffice. The idea is that not only state workers but also constituents could use such cheaper options.

“Microsoft sees what’s coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic,” Dr. Homan said.

That last sentence nails it in a clearer way than I’ve seen elsewhere. Despite what Microsoft lobbying may attempt to assert, real competition here would be good for State governments from a cost perspective. Even bigger to me though is the freedom state constituents would gain for accessing information they have a right to. With Office counting for Billions in revenue though, Microsoft has a fiduciary duty to downplay that. And they are. Will they be able to make a convincing enough argument to stave off the growing ODF swell? We’ll see.

–jeremy

Filed under Microsoft, MSFT, ODF, Open Source

Microsoft's other Linux patent deals

April 19, 2007 Leave a comment

It looks like the Novell Patent deal isn’t the only one Microsoft is pursuing. From a recent CBR post:

While Microsoft’s patent covenant deal with Novell has grabbed all the headlines, it is not the (only) patent deal Microsoft has done recently regarding Linux and open source software.

Back in March in struck a patent deal with Fuji Xerox, while over night it announced a broad patent deal with Samsung.

What have these deals got to do with Linux? A lot, according to Microsoft’s representation of the terms.

Neither of which actually state that Linux contains Microsoft’s intellectual property, but they continue to associate the open source operating system with Microsoft’s intellectual property.

It’s a fair assumption that maintaining the association is the main reason for mentioning Linux in the announcements, given that must be countless other technologies involved that do not get a specific mention.

Only Microsoft and Samsung/Fuji Xerox know how much the deals actually relate to Linux.

So what is going on here? Given the vague nature of the patent sharing agreements it remains to be seen, but the argument put forward by Matt Asay recently following a conversation with Mark Shuttleworth certainly makes a lot of sense:

“Microsoft’s patent game is designed to force open source to compete on its terms. Mark made a hugely salient point on this: Microsoft has been a disruptive force in the software industry by building complex software and essentially giving it away for peanuts.

In turn, it is being challenged by open source, which is free. The difference, as Mark said, between $0.00 and $0.01 is huge. And that difference is not flattering to Microsoft, even despite its lower price points than its fellow proprietary competitors.

The assertion is that Microsoft is attempting to basically levy a tax on Open Source software. It does seems odd the Linux is specifically called out, while no other technologies are. As the article indicates though, only Microsoft and Samsung/Fuji Xerox know how much the deals actually relate to Linux. These deals certainly snuck under the radar when compared to the Novell deal, but neither of the other companies involved here are “Open Source” companies and deals like this in the industry are quite common. Where Microsoft is planning to go with these deals is anyones guess, but it’s certainly something worth keeping an eye on. I’d definitely agree with the general consensus that Microsoft is looking to create doubt and not looking to actually sue anyone. We’ll see.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Open Source

Microsoft Urges Review of Google-DoubleClick Deal

April 16, 2007 Leave a comment

It’s amazing how quickly things change sometimes. Microsoft, the consummate anti-trust defendee, is now asking for help from antitrust authorities. From the NYT article:

Microsoft, a veteran defendant of epic antitrust battles in the United States and Europe, is urging regulators to consider scuttling Google’s plan to buy DoubleClick, an online advertising company.

Microsoft contends that the $3.1 billion deal, announced on Friday, would hurt competition in the fast-growing market for advertising on the Web and raises questions about how much personal information would be collected by Google, already a dominant player in online advertising.

Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in an interview yesterday that Google’s purchase of DoubleClick would combine the two largest online advertising distributors and thus “substantially reduce competition in the advertising market on the Web.”

Google dismissed Microsoft’s assertions. “We’ve studied this closely, and their claims, as stated, are not true,” Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, said in an interview last night.

I’d guess many will find this ironic. Microsoft clearly had a different take on “substantially reduced competition” when they were on the other side of the equation. I think this marks a watershed moment for Microsoft. They may have hit the realization that they are unable to effectively compete in a certain market. They’ve thrown money and resources at the situation with little results. The fact that they, of all companies, are so quickly asking for this is indicative of their current situation. It’s even more ironic considering that any deal this big surely would have been throughly reviewed anyway. They’re showing just how weak their position is, with little upside from my point of view. One thing is clear, Microsoft is no longer the bulldozing behemoth they once were. Not by a long shot.

–jeremy

Filed under Google, Microsoft, MSFT

Novell's Link to the Microsoft TCO Linux Message

March 20, 2007 Leave a comment

Stephen illustrates (via this post) something that I’ve tried to put into words several times on my blog. His picture does a really good job of getting the idea across though. From the post:

Red Hat began messaging at least a year ago around the use of Red Hat linux in value creation. Here’s how the logic flows from a Michael Tiemann presentation at the 2006 Red Hat Summit:

* Companies spend on average 4-8% of income on IT (Financial companies 8-12%)
* So regardless of how you carve up the cost savings, you’re messing around with something that will NOT move the stock price anytime soon.
* IT focusing on the value creation side of the bar can help by delivering better customer service (and retention), market growth, competitive advantage.

It’s a difficult realization for some, but “being cheap” is not what makes Open Source great. Yes, the cost proposition is often compelling… but it’s the value proposition that I usually find remarkable. This sort of reminds me, although it’s a different situation, of some of the Oracle messaging around their Linux release. The major push seemed to be around cost savings. They didn’t see the irony of a company selling 6-8 figure database solutions offering 3 digit saving on an OS. An additional 1% additional off the DB would always be more. Where’s the value in that?

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

Yes, sometimes Linux costs more than Windows

March 16, 2007 2 Comments

While poorly timed for Novell, I’d agree with this post. Sometimes Linux may indeed cost more than Windows. Putting aside that everything isn’t about cost, look at the parameters involved here:

f you look at the details of the announcement you’ll see that the reason why HSBC had better management costs for Windows was because it had taken a proactive Active Directory-led approach to managing Windows, whereas a variety of Linux systems had been deployed an a largely ad hoc, application-led basis.

Having spoken to Matthew O’Neill, group head of distributed systems for HSBC global IT operations, we published the following:

“’A couple of years ago we commenced the global deployment of Active Directory and in doing that project we managed to demise a range of infrastructure servers,’ he added, noting that the end result was that it cost less to manage Windows servers than it did to manage Linux servers.

One of the reasons for that is that the company had taken an ad hoc approach to Linux deployment. ‘In the early stages of deployment we did tend to set the build to the specific application, rather than look at it as a commoditized server,’ O’Neill said.”

In this context – combined with the abundance of Windows skills compared to Linux – it is fairly obvious that Windows would end up being cheaper to manage per instance than Linux.

Loosely translated, that means a shop with a lot of Windows experience who is utilizing managed deployment is able to more effectively manage Windows than Linux, which they rolled out ad hoc and are new to. That shouldn’t be a real surprise and is obviously not and apples to apples comparison. However, we need to get past this cost issue. The main advantage of Open Source, especially in the Enterprise, is not being gratis.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

Follow a journey through the migration process to Open Source

March 16, 2007 Leave a comment

Mercian Labels Ltd is migrating to Open Source. Alone, that’s not huge news – a ton of companies from SMB’s to Enterprises are doing the same. What’s different here is that they are blogging the entire process. This should give us a near real-time look at the trials and tribulations of an SMB Open Source migration as it happens. Should be interested.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Open Source

If You're Going To Steal Software, Steal From Us: Microsoft Exec

March 15, 2007 1 Comment

From The article:

If you’re going to be a software counterfeiter, then please copy and illegally use Microsoft products.

The above plea isn’t from a posting on a hacker forum. Rather, it’s how Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes feels about software counterfeiters. “If they’re going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else,” Raikes said.

But Raikes, speaking last week at the Morgan Stanley Technology conference in San Francisco, said a certain amount of software piracy actually helps Microsoft because it can lead to purchases by individuals who otherwise might never have been exposed to the company’s products.

“We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products,” Raikes said. “What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software.”

That sounds suspiciously like the business model of many Open Source companies, doesn’t it? It’s just that we don’t call it piracy. Companies like MySQL thrive on having absolutely massive install bases. They have these millions of installs precisely because of the gratis and libre nature of their product. It’s then their responsibility to offer enough value to incent some amount of those downloaders to purchase products or services from the company. For some companies it’s support, for others it’s certification and official binaries. It could also be the ability to use the product in a commercial environment, extra features or myriad other things. The point is, there’s additional value for the consumer. The funny thing is, in its early days (say <= Windows 3.1) Microsoft seemed to almost embrace this. Seems things may have come full circle.

–jeremy

Filed under Microsoft, Open Source

Red Hat Launches Open-Source Exchange

March 14, 2007 Leave a comment

The software company is unveiling an online marketplace for Open Source developers—where Red Hat can sell support, and links to its own products. From the article:

Red Hat signaled a strategic shift on Mar. 14 when it announced an initiative called the Red Hat Exchange (rhx), an online marketplace where it will sell products from more than a dozen open-source companies including Mysql, Sugarcrm, and Al Fresco Software. The exchange could make a wide range of software attractive to businesses large and small that have been put off by the challenges of buying from lesser-known suppliers and piecing it all together.

When rhx goes live in the second quarter, Red Hat will guarantee that the other companies’ products work well with its own, and the company will provide tech support for all of them. The marketplace will be much more than just an online product catalog. It’s designed to function as a community where users of open-source software can read reviews, rate the products, and compare notes.

Open-source software is made collaboratively by developers from around the world and is available for anybody to use, free of charge. Red Hat and others sell commercial versions that include extra software, documentation, and support. Says Red Hat chief executive Matthew J. Szulik, “Rhx gives us the opportunity to be the flag bearer for open-source software.”

Partners at launch will include Alfresco, Jaspersoft, MySQL and SugarCRM. The article is light on details, such as what level of support is offered by Red Hat before you go upstream and what kind of revenue share is involved. One thing is clear to me though; this is good for Open Source. It’s the beginning of a bona fide commercial Open Source ecosystem, the likes of which we’ve not yet seen. The importance of an ecosystem is one thing that Microsoft used to really get. It’s one of the things that has made them as strong as they are. But as their stock has slumped in recent years, they’ve begun to canabilize both ISV’s and partners. That makes now a golden opportunity for something like this. The Exchange should launch next quarter and is something I’ll definitely keep an eye on.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Open Source, Red Hat

If you can't beat them, fine them II

March 9, 2007 Leave a comment

There's a little debate going back and forth about the topic I posted about here. For my part, I have no issue with most of what the EU has been able to accomplish with respect to Microsoft abusing its monopoly position. In fact, I give them kudos for stepping up and taking a stand where the DOJ failed to. What scares me is the possibility of a Government being able to assign a value to what it perceives as innovation (or lack thereof). Even if they are correct in this particular case, it just seems like a precarious precedent.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

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